TL;DR: Being good at anything takes time and effort, you should be proud of your rank, whatever it is, and even more proud of the hard work that got you there.
Recently I saw a lot of comments saying that Master is trash, those guys can't play the game, Mickey Mouse rank. It's ridiculous that being in the top 0.67% of something can be considered bad. That's why I wanted to provide some real-life examples of being top 1% to make it easier to imagine. I picked 1% as it was easier to find the data, so keep in mind the actual disparity is likely even greater.
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Annual income in the US: The top 1% earns almost $800k
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Average height in the US: The top 1% means at least 5'10'' for women and at least 6'4'' for men
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Average IQ: The top 1% means an IQ of at least 135
Bonus: 2% of Americans have a PhD, and OP wanted to know how is that considered rare, luckily people in r/phd were able to explain that.
Now imagine if you heard someone say that a 6'4 guy isn't that tall, $800k means nothing because Jeff Bezos makes that in an hour, and people with an IQ of 135 are dumb because Einstein's was higher. You would think they are crazy, and you would be right.
Yet for some reason, there is a popular take on this subreddit that being in the top 0.67% of the ranked ladder is not that good. High elo starts at rank 1, everyone below that is bad. They aren't good enough to go pro, why even bother queueing up?
I don't know if that's parroting what streamers/pro players say, an ego boost: "Yeah I'm gold, but master is trash too!", or just this community's impossible standards, but I think this shouldn't be the norm. Thanks for reading and best of luck fellow challengers.
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Low masta doglow
I can hear that in yamatos voice.
PLAP PLAP PLAP
DISCH DISCH DISCH
DisGAASting low masta piggy typing to me why?
his mother is healthy i think, in game of course
Someone like TF Blade on his 274th unranked to challenger account playing in Masters and talking about how bad his teammates are... Like, obviously, players look "bad" when you are playing 1.2k LP below where you should be... It's like being emelard in silver game.
In terms of personality TF Blade is bronze 4. Unlucky. Skill issue.
He's chill until something goes slightly wrong. An actual 12yo in an adult's body.
I use chess as an analogy.
Most players suck at chess. There are around 2k Chess GMs (2024) and in 2019 there are 173000 rated FIDE players, up 6k from the year prior. It’s reasonable to estimate that GMs are the top 1% of rated players, similar to Masters in LoL.
But the difference in ability from the top GMs and low GMs is extremely high still. A low GM will rarely beat a top GM. But you don’t see top GMs calling low GMs trash. You see that in League though.
In both cases, although the rank is very good relatively speaking, it’s clear that there’s still a large skill gap among the top 1%.
You don't see High GMs calling Low GMs trash because chess isn't a team game. It doesn't matter if the guy next to you loses in chess. But if the guy next to you in league loses you might lose because of that.
You have a good point there.
But even outside of that you have like people here calling themselves low ELO or others low ELO if they’re below Diamond or masters. This is outside of the games they play themselves.
You will get torn to shreds if you say you’re “good” at the game if you’re Diamond. Although relative to the average player you are indeed very good.
If someone is Diamond, they are GOOD at the game, relatively really quite good. People can tear others to shreds for saying it, that doesn’t change the fact that they’re good players.
They are not great, or completely outstanding relative to other players, a descriptor that should be saved for Masters+ realistically speaking. And that’s okay, barely anyone who touches this game will ever be good enough to hit Masters lmao
also because it is very hard to get an all challenger lobby with queue times. most lobbies are a mix of GMs and challengers but a random master is thrown in sometimes, or even a challenger player gets put into a mostly master lobby.
that's probably where a lot of the hate comes. a lot of pros describe it as having "low quality" games
Your explanation makes sense other than that GMs are more like the top 0.0015% of chess players (based on around 1500 GMs in the world and 100M chess players) l. The top 1% is probably around 1600 elo, which is definitely trash in comparison to any GM (or other title player for that matter). I am around the top 0.1% in chess and I am still terrible compared to any GM. Obviously, this doesn't justify flaming anyone in masters (or any other tier), but I just wanted to address the facts here.
No way. That might be top 5-10%, but top 1% is definitely at least 2000. Assuming that we’re talking about “people who play chess”, as in actively and regularly.
If you’re lumping in everyone who’s ever played chess, then yeah, 1600 is probably top 1%
I'm using chess.com's numbers here, and 1800 looks to be the 1% mark for rapid chess. Obviously this isn't a perfect dataset, but I think it's a decent analogue for league.
Top 1% is 1800 I saw it in a Gotham chess video on Tyler1
Except that you can't become a GM playing just on chess.com. GM is only a title that can be acquired through FIDE so it doesn't make sense to compare the number of GMs to the entire population of people who play online chess.
Any sort of comparison is going to be inaccurate anyways because far more people play regular online Chess than regular OTB FIDE rated tournaments anyways. Of the people that say play the game regularly, I'd harbor a guess that a significant portion of them play only online.
Yes, but it's not trash. A player at 1600 fide is a very, very strong player.
I’m going by FIDE registered players as that is the de facto and internationally respected ranking system. Wiki says there are 2k+ GMs.
Not sure where you get 100M from but if you’re including anyone who plays chess in general or like Lichess/Chess.com stats, those are not recognized, plus people can make bot accounts, cheat, lie, etc. And the League statistic is based on ranked players in solo queue I bet, so the numerous casual/norms/aram players are excluded. To keep that parallel here, it would make sense to only include players officially recognized in the ranking system.
PS: I couldn’t find what the top 1% actually is and ChatGPT said it’s about 2400+, which is similar to my estimate before.
I wouldn't use the FIDE data here since league is way more casual than otb chess. There are bots in league too, and the player bases on chess.com and league are about the same size. I don't think it makes sense to compare fide and league when they are very different.
You can't really trash talk while playing chess
Tell that to Magnus
he just disrespects you by playing suboptimal openings
I think the reason the Chess comparison, among other professional games/sports, is inherently flawed is because those games don't have significant changes every few months that drastically impact how the game is played. With games like Chess, you build a foundation of knowledge that you're constantly drawing from. You could be a Masters LoL player because you happen to be good or know how to abuse something that is overpowered in that moment. While it's somewhat irrefutable that being in the top 1% makes you, at that time, good at the game, it doesn't really compare.
A chess personality mentioned that Abasov is better than 90% of chess GMs and he was still getting rocked in the candidates. He's not even a low GM, just not a top 25 in the world player, and the gap was clear.
But why would someone draw line between good and trash oly between master and challenger? That is a highly impractical way if categorizing skill. And why do you not use the same reasoning to define trash? Iron players and Platinum players both are nowhere near the skill level of challengers, but Platinum players absolutely dismantle iron players in aspect of the game. They are arguably not even playing the same game.
Streaming and Esports in general has warped the perception of how people see skill in video games for the worse. Back before all that existed people just looked at their own lobbies and saw who was the best player, be it KDA in an FPS or map control in an RTS. There were leaderboards people could chase as well but often hackers filled up every other spot. These days kids just parrot what streamers say as if it were law. But streamers are on air 8+ hours a day every day. They are eventually going to get cranky and start rank blaming players for dumb things regardless of if it's correct.
Yup
100% this. And the rank just changes from time to time. Not long ago we had Diamond X rank is trash. Then Plat, then Master. Then GM. Hell, I've even heard streamers say that CHALLENGER....THE HIGHEST RANK YOU CAN GET, ffs, is "trash"
But more often you hear if you're "just challenger you're trash" ... "you need to be top 10-5-20" whatever the goalpost is moved to, and it's BEYOND stupid.
People are parroting streamers and known voices within the scene, but I also think people are just trying to find excuses for losing, and instead of taking any responsibility they blame their teammates for being "trash" rank..
And yes, I've heard likeable streamers say these kind of things as well. It's not just your toxic asshats like Tarzaned, that toplane manchild (can't remember his name. He mains Jax), Dekar etcetc.
Just a small edit: I also, unfortunately, think the whole "calling lower ranks trash" and even masters and what not is part of the whole "gamer culture" that has prolly been a staple since the xbox lobby days and what not. And we REALLY, as a community, need to change that shit, sooner rather than later.
We've had similar discourse in the FGC lately, with both SF6 and Tekken 8. Lots of people saying that "intermediate Tekken" starts at Tekken King (it's like Top 1%)
and in SF6 people saying that Master rank (highest rank) is also just intermediate.
"tHe rEaL gAmE BeGiNs aT 1500"
and you know these mfers dont actually go to their locals.
I was curious once and reddit stalked a couple people that say stupid shit like that. theyre all basically kappacino losers who don't actually participate in the FGC. Theyre probably just twitch andies and dont actually put themselves out there to be ridiculed.
Yep, pretty much. Just people online trying to put others down
I blocked Kappacino forever. But yeah, I sit around 1500-1600 in SF6, and I generally get top 3 at my locals.
I've only been seriously into one FGC/Fighting game before, and that was smash melee. And if there is ONE thing I'm glad for in that game, it's that it's soooooo easy to differentiate a good player from even "just" a intermediate player, and ESPECIALLY a bad player.
And I assume it's just as easy in Tekken and SF6. And yeah, what you're saying is so.....infuriating and unecessary -.-
the first time i ever hit d2, literally the very next game i was called "hardstuck d2 0lp trash" by like a d1 player with 600 more ranked games played that season than me lol.
People just parrot their favorite streamer and it's embarrassing. You can tell based on the current slang terms such as dogwater or whatever the fotm term is.
More that they need someone to blame when the game goes wrong and it's easy to pick the lower ranked player.
I see it all the time, streamers whining that they have masters/GM players when they are barely higher ranked themselves.
I wish I gained 800k a year instead of being top 0.1% in a videogame
From that point your best move is to become top 0.01%
not rly and the fact that you wrote this is completely in line with this extremely funny thread
Just be faker smh, it's not that complicated
based username btw
1.2% of college basketball players go pro. That means you're already scholarship bound in almost all instances and then have to continually love the game and improve your game. Going pro doesn't even mean NBA, pro is making money within a league essentially. It's a much smaller number beyond that to go NBA, then an even smaller number to be a "star"
英雄联盟 800K USD 12 MONTHS 超高收入 英雄联盟 0.1% RYZE HACK
Pros do both
edit: idk why you ppl are replying like I don't know only a select amount of people can be pros, I just stated a fact that pros both earn a lot and are top 0.1% in a videogame 😭😭😭
Did*
Still do in korea and china! Just go be chinese!
☠️☠️☠️
i mean, put that same effort and enthusiasm into your working career and you might get there.
this is greatly inaccurate cuz everyone here are Top 0.03% challenger players, make an average of $999k and they are all 7'0
And also I have a six pack and 2 oscars
And I can play the ukalele
You know you almost made me believe you for a second there, but you lost me at the ukulele.
Also peaked 2057 lp on china superserver
I do agree the ukalele is my biggest accomplishment though.
Oh yeah? Well, I can spell ukelele.
finds excuse to blame others instead of admitting my mistake
*talks in asterisks instead of in sentences*
Wait, it's actually NOT ukUlele? I know for SURE it's not ukalele, like the person you replied to wrote, but hell..I thought it was ukUlele.. But I guess that is just how you pronounce it, so it confuses you in a way? Not a english speaker, as is prolly obvious by this point :P
It is with a u, the guy is joking. Although it's in general a little confusing because of the short form uke, which implies that the long form is spelled with an e.
Still trash if you're not Jake Shimabukuro, pal.
I’ll have you know I’m 7’2. All of you 7’0 plebs must look up to me.
There is a guy on EUW server with the nickname 190cm, 105kg, 20cm or something. Just a legend. On the internet everyone is that guy.
If they are legit 7 footers they are in the wrong business anyways. Since a good chunk of em make the nba and can make way more than 999k a year.
omg literally me frfr
People saying that masters players are trash are just parroting streamers. It’s cringe.
yup even statistically speaking 98%+ of the people who say that have never vsed a masters player outside of a random normal game where he was dicking around on offrole with premades so they couldnt even tell to begin with
master players are trash, source Im one
It's because if you compare them to challengers they are actually really bad and no challenger player would like to have one on their team because the difference is abysmal, compared to everyone below they are good at the game
Yeah and I doubt Harry Kane would like to have Romeu in his starting lineup
Dyrus was challenger for like 8 years in a row on multiple accounts and people still called him shit
It's not about analyzing the gameplay, it's about putting the other player down and feeling a sense of superiority
It's awful and one of the main reasons I quit
Yep, compare it to gymbros, they will see you just starting, not knowing shit about the exercises, and they will cheer you on.
League players love to be miserable and do all they can to drag others into it.
And just like toxic people in league there are plenty of toxic gymbros. I got laughed at for being fat more than corrected on my exercises.
I'm a skinny guy and have literally never seen/had this happen to me in all my years of going to a gym. The only negative interaction I had was a guy trying to tell me how to squat and immediately getting shit on by 2-3 people who happened to be nearby. Shame severely cuts down on the amount of public assholery people are comfortable displaying.
That's because gymbros know where they were themselves, so they can relate. People in League can literally one trick 1 champion and learn some sort of cheese strat with it and reach at least high Diamond if not Master in some cases. It's hard to compare.
I am tricep push down one trick
Understandable
Prove that though. That you can cheese a strat and just become masters. If anyone is doing that they already played league for years.